February 12, 2012 - Global Earthquakes by North or South Latitude: I downloaded all global earthquakes greater than or equal to 6.0 magnitude; from January 1, 1973 to February 11, 2012; and graphed the results above by north or south latitude.
As you can clear see, south latitude (below the equator) clearly was the winner. The average of all quakes was 2,663. That means that north had 214 less tremors during the period, while south had 214 more. The difference is 8% between the two hemispheres.
The reason is that the south latitudes includes the very earthquake prone areas of the South West Pacific Ocean; to include Indonesia, the Solomon and Sandwich Islands, Vanuatu, , Fiji, the Philippines, New Zealand, Australia, Papua New Guinea, Tonga, Samoa, Guam and New Caledonia. South latitude also included Chile, Peru, Venezuela, Ecuador, Argentina, Columbia and Bolivia.
The North Latitude includes, Japan, China, Taiwan, Russia, the United States (especially Alaska), Mexico and others.
What is peculiar is the number of earthquakes fluctuates from north to south latitude by year. For example, in the 21st century the years 2000, 2006, 2007 and 2009 where very high south latitude years; while 2002, 2003, 2005 and 2011 were high north latitude years. Those years not mentioned where about equal. Why this is I do not know. I believe it has to do with the number of type of planets that are either south or north declination (above of below the earths equator projected into space). (Credits: Data – USGS, Graphic: W. G. Foster)
The Master of Disaster
I’m sure that the graph of M 5 earthquakes for the same time period would show an even wider disparity. Such earthquakes are like popcorn, in the Southern Hemisphere.
http://thedailyclimb.wordpress.com/
I’m sure you’re right. For those of you who have not visited the “geogesblog360″ I highly recommend it.
Yours,
Bill Foster
Thank you, Bill….. I’ve been watching the USGS map since 2002. I’ve always been conscious of the M 5 + quakes. I remember reading an article talking about how having more than 5 such quakes on the world map, within the previous 24 hours, was unusual. The following few days, there were as many as 14 blue squares on the world map. Very unusual. I’ve also noticed a peculiar pattern. It begins with at least 4 M5s along the equator. Withing a few days, they are followed by M5s near the polar regions. The pattern concludes with a large to great magnitude quake. I’ve seen that pattern, a number of times.
George .
Thanks, Bill .. I’ve been watching the USGS map since 2003. I remember reading an article thyat talked about 5 earthquakes of M% + on the world map, in 24 hours, being unusual. Shortly after reading that, There were 14 such quakes on the map, in about 27 hours. I’ve noticed a pattern in quakes of that magnitude. When I see 4 or more M%s ringing the equator, it gets my attention. I’m then watching for M5s, near the polar regions. If I see that, I expect to see a large earthquake, somewhere in the world.
Thank you very much! This was very informative, exciting and interesting!!!